FanPost

Super Slugging

Joe Posnanski had a blog post a while back where he was putting guys in the Hall of Fame that weren’t actually there.  When it came to Mark McGwire, he brought up what he called “sort of a super slugging formula.” 

This is how it works: add up all the bases a player accumulates — total bases + stolen bases + walks + hit by pitch — and divide that by plate appearances.

Poz then followed w/ the ten highest ranked super sluggers in baseball history (5,000 plate appearances):

1. Babe Ruth, super-slugged .756
2. Barry Bonds, .726
3. Ted Williams, .712
4. Lou Gehrig, .695
5. Albert Pujols, .679
6. Jimmie Foxx, .673
7. Hank Greenberg, ..667
8. Mark McGwire, .658
9. Alex Rodriguez, .655
Manny Ramirez, .651

So after seeing that, I thought it would be interesting to see how other players stacked up to this very formidable list.  I also broke down some single seasons just to see what they looked like. 

As you can imagine, Edmonds looks great w/ this stat.  When healthy, he was a hell of a slugger.
Jim Edmonds
Career: .594
2000 - Edmonds’ first season in StL: .661
2004 - Edmonds’ best season: .709

Ryan Ludwick
2008: .635

Rick Ankiel
2008: .557

Troy Glaus
2008: .554
2000: .690 (w/ ANA)

Chris Duncan
2006: .627
2007: .551

And since El Hombre was on the list, I decided to break down some of his single seasons just to see if any were Ruthian.  They weren’t, but they were still pretty damn good.  I think Pujolsian works just fine.
Albert Pujols
2003: .712
2008: .715
2006: .729
His two worst seasons (at least by this stat) still put him on a pretty high pedestal.
2002: .613
2007: .632

Ray Lankford
1997: .687
1998: .644

Brian Jordan
1998: .595

Mark McGwire
1998: 70 HR year .811

(On a side note: After looking thru the previous 3’s stats, I thought, how did the ’98 Cards only win 83 games?  Then I looked at the rotation.  Matty Mo and Todd Stottlemyre were awesome, but there were lots of games started by Manny Aybar and Mark Petkovsek and Kent Mercker led the staff in innings pitched.  Now it makes perfect sense.)

Willie McGee
1985: .610
(That’s pretty impressive considering he only hit 10 HRs)

Barry Bonds

2001 - 73 HR year: .919 

Larry Walker
1997 - His best season (for COL): .804

While none of this is groundbreaking, it is fun to look at.  Obviously, you could go on forever w/ this, and I thought it was interesting enough to share.